


Keep Up the Pretense (However Long It Takes)

by Joel7th



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drinking, Horrance, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn with Feelings, mild spoilers for season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25666273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joel7th/pseuds/Joel7th
Summary: “You think you know me,” Klaus said, breathless and shaky, lacking his usual bravado. The flush had crept up his neck to his cheeks and into the whites of his eyes, for now they were pink. In contrast beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face and pooled in the dip at the base of his throat. He turned his head sideways to avoid Ben’s eyes. “You know shit, Ben. If you really knew me, you’d know me to be a freak that gets a raging hard-on because his very dead, very juvenile brother is pinning him against the bed.”Set pre-season 2.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves/Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 8
Kudos: 93





	Keep Up the Pretense (However Long It Takes)

Ben tilted his head to the left, face neutral if not a little tired, a little disappointed, dodging a wine glass flying directly at him. It missed his head by a couple centimeters, collided with the hard wall behind him and shattered into a dozen pretty pieces.

What a waste. He kind of liked that ornate glass, with its gold-plated stem and intricate carvings on the pear-shaped bowl.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to fling it your way,” Klaus slurred, taking a liberal swig straight from his bottle now that he had a glass no more. “You know my control over this-this telekinetic thingy is still a bit shaky at best. Especially when I’m... like this.” With his hand holding the bottle, he made vague gestures at his body, languidly reclining on the huge, feather-soft mattress that seemed to be swallowing him up at a snail’s space. “I have better control of my other tricks though, and I’d have made you incorporeal before it hit you.”

Ben glanced at the label on Klaus’s half-empty bottle. A ten-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon that was potentially pricey and generally served in crystal glass and savored instead of being chugged down to get hammered, which was exactly what Klaus had been doing until now. Still, alcohol was just alcohol in Klaus’s dictionary, and Ben knew his brother could not care less as long as it was able to bring him the “blissful drunken stupor”. His words. “No, you couldn’t have,” Ben denied dryly. “Not when you’re like this.”

Klaus scoffed, bringing the bottle to his lips. His hand which had been supporting his head slipped and he laid flat on his back, his long legs dangling off the bed, feet bare and toenails lacking the midnight lacquer Ben had long since associated with him. Another part Ben missed. Another part this era had sapped of Klaus. Ben started to loathe it.

Ben seemed to loathe many a thing these days. Klaus had joked that the scope of his resentment was enough to house the whole horde of The Horrors and still have space for some more. A bad joke, really, but Ben had not had it in his heart to be mad at him; instead, it had been refreshing to know something so _Klaus_ still present.

Klaus couldn’t understand, of course he couldn’t. Klaus might have died once — the details, which Klaus had not been generous in sharing, were pretty hazy to Ben — but he had never been a ghost following his brother around and being forced to witnessed every high and low of him. It was bad enough to be a ghost in his own era; it was worse to be a ghost in an era where everything was strange and foreign. Where every day he felt like he was losing bits and bits of Klaus to it.

“I’m curious,” said Klaus, eyes darting from the ceiling to the spot where the glass had met its tragic fate. Anywhere but Ben. “Could ghosts feel pain? Would you have been hurt if it had hit you?”

“Did you intend to find out?”

“Of course not,” Klaus denied, sounding whiny as he laid his palm against his chest, theatrically as always. “Did you think so low of me? Would I ever _actively_ hurt my dear brother?”

It was Ben’s turn to scoff. “Yeah, that time you dead-ass threw a bowling ball at me. You know how painful it is to get hit in the chest by a bowling ball? Bet you don’t.”

“You were prepared to catch it anyway.”

“I blame it on your contagious madness.”

Ben’s dark eyes traveled across the expanse of Klaus’s abdomen and chest, briefly surveying the inexplicable tattoo stretched out on his skin before moving on and finally arriving at the dip between his clavicles. Klaus lowered his gaze to meet Ben’s and then took another swig, his chest steadily rising and falling and his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“You’ve been drinking,” Ben deadpanned.

“Since I was 13. Thanks for noticing.”

“I thought you were getting clean.”

“I _am_ clean,” Klaus stressed, tapping the glistening mouth of his bottle on Ben’s thigh, darkening a spot on his jeans. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do this. Know why I turned to drugs in the first place? ‘Cuz booze was never enough to block out the buzzing noises.”

“I don’t want to see you like this, Klaus.”

Klaus waved his ‘Goodbye’ hand in front of Ben’s face. “Then don’t look,” he said. “Don’t let yourself be holed up here with me. Go out and explore! The world awaits.”

The way he lengthened the words and raised his voice at the end reminded Ben of those pyramid scheme promoters who had tried to recruit Klaus in the past. Ben didn’t buy a single word.

“Like I could get that far away from you,” he huffed, swatting Klaus’s hand away.

Klaus clenched his fist and a soft blue glow enveloped it. Immediately Ben felt energy roiling inside him and took a deep inhalation; it was a little too much from the amount Klaus often provided.

Klaus exhaled in sync with Ben and scrutinized his expression with knowing eyes. “The things I do for my brother,” Klaus breathed. “Why don’t you go to the disco just down the street and loosen up and maybe find a girl or guy to bump hips with? God knows you need it. And you got the looks, bro. Pretty sure no one will mind a little extra chill along the ride.”

Ben glared at Klaus and got to his feet. They felt solid enough for him to not worry about slipping through the wooden flooring. As he made to the door, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet, he heard Klaus mutter, “You’ll thank me later.” He glanced back and saw that Klaus wasn’t even looking at him, his half-lidded eyes fixating on his glowing hand as he drank. There were only a few mouthfuls left in the bottle. Anger surged hotly in Ben’s chest and instead of turning the doorknob, he spun and snatched the bottle from Klaus’s hand.

“Hey!” Klaus protested loudly, springing up from the bed, hands reaching for his prized bottle. The sudden movement caused him to lose his balance, which, coupled with Ben’s not-so-gentle push on his chest, made Klaus fall flat on his back. Lucky for him, it was a bouncy mattress beneath him instead of the cold, unforgiving floor. Not that Ben cared about it anyway; Klaus had taken as many cold, unforgiving floors as Ben’s age and one could argue he was a pro at it. He had also been known to never go out without a fight and so Ben would have gotten a whole foot in his face if his reflex hadn’t been honed by literal decades by Klaus’s side observing his moves; his sobriety was an added advantage, too. Tilting his head to the left, he dodged Klaus’s (arguably poorly aimed) kick as he had done earlier with the glass and grabbed his shin, pressing it down. Milliseconds later, he leapt on the bed and straddled Klaus’s thighs, effectively rendering his legs, along with his better chance of winning this brawl, useless. Under his weight, Klaus thrashed, then quickly resided to baring his teeth and hissing like a feral cat when he realized Ben didn’t budge. It occurred with crystal-clear clarity to him that Klaus could have shut down their link the moment Ben landed on him; still, the steady stream of energy pumping into his core raised a question whether Klaus was aware, which was odd, given his earlier boast about his powers expanding.

There was no time to make sure Klaus wouldn’t throw him off, so Ben tipped his head back and downed the remaining content of the bottle. His brows knitted and face scrunched up as the bitter taste flooded his mouth; why Klaus had come to love this burning liquid was beyond him. He fought to swallow it down his throat, all of it, feeing keenly the prick of tears at the rims of his eyes. He wouldn’t be able to produce actual waterworks, of course, but that didn’t ban the phantom sensations from surfacing.

Ben dropped the bottle once it was drained, and the thing rolled under the bed, where it was joined by a few cousins. Wiping his lips with the back of his hand, Ben opened his eyes to Klaus’s wide-eyed stare. There was something unsettling about his blown pupils and the faintest flush painting his cheeks. Ben decided to write them off as his intoxication.

“Well, if you had wanted a sip,” Klaus drawled, “you should have just asked nicely, no need for getting rough.” A beat, before he continued. “I still have a few more. Would you prefer whites or reds? Or perhaps whisky?”

“You’ve gone so far, Klaus, and I hate to see you piss it all down the drain, spiraling back to square one. All this senseless drinking, it’s just like drugs. It numbs you for a while before everything comes crashing down. Deep down you don’t want it.”

Klaus’s eyes flared a second before his bony fist collided with Ben’s jaw. The unforeseen but not entirely unexpected — he had spent too much time around Klaus to read him like the only book in his post-life possession — blow was relatively harmless despite the initial shock. Ben didn’t even register any pain, the perk of being not-alive. Klaus began to thrash once more and his arms flailed about in frantic movements. Ben caught his wrists, twisted them just enough for pain to lick Klaus’s alcohol-addled mind and pinned them above his head, all the while still straddling Klaus.

“Who gave you the rights to assume you know what I want?” Klaus growled. “You’re dead, Ben. Dead for years and years, before any of us knew what it was like to be outside that dreadful hellhole. How the hell do you know a living person’s wants and needs?”

“I know what _you_ want. Have always known. You know why I know? Because you haven’t cut off our link. Because you make me stronger than you so that I can stop you from what you truly don’t want!”

Klaus squirmed and tried to raise his leg to kick Ben. His desperate attempt proved futile since, as Ben had told him, his ghost brother was physically stronger and couldn’t be dislodged with a feeble kick. Then something happened and they both froze. Ben felt it, and judging by the horrified look that had just taken over his countenance, Klaus must have felt it too. They stared into each other’s eyes and reached a mutual understanding.

“You think you know me,” Klaus said, breathless and shaky, lacking his usual bravado. The flush had crept up his neck to his cheeks and into the whites of his eyes, for now they were pink. In contrast beads of sweat rolled down the sides of his face and pooled in the dip at the base of his throat. He turned his head sideways to avoid Ben’s eyes. “You know shit, Ben. If you really knew me, you’d know me to be a freak that gets a raging hard-on because his very dead, very juvenile brother is pinning him against the bed.”

If that had aimed to throw him off, Ben supposed, then Klaus had utterly failed. When he looked down at his face, a single emotion rose in his chest, and Ben was certain it was nowhere near disgust. Quite the opposite, actually.

He cupped Klaus’s chin and turned his face toward him. He was met with some resistance but Klaus yielded quickly.

“Except I’m not your very dead, very juvenile brother,” Ben began, tone even in spite of the tightness in his chest. Another phantom, likely. If he had a heart, it would have already turned into a panicked horse. “It’s amazing how you’ve been pulling the veil over your eyes for so long you’ve forgotten the truth. You made me, remember, molded me after your brother’s looks if he could have aged, separated me from the rest of you because you needed me, because it was easier to hear his voice than your own conscience. Countless rehabs and withdrawals. Hazel and Cha-Cha and their tortures. When you needed someone to stop you from popping the pills. Someone to pull you and Diego from the falling debris. Someone to save your siblings from the assassins and prove that you weren’t a useless junkie. You still do, so I’m here. I’ve always been _you_. That’s why I know.”

Klaus wasn’t the only one who’d been pulling the veil over his eyes; Ben had, too. Most of the time he was so comfortable in using the dearly departed brother’s voice, nagging at Klaus, whispering encouragements to Klaus when he was delirious with withdrawal, exchanging playful banters with him, that he forgot it was never his own.

That and everything else.

One thing the old geezer had been right: that Klaus had only scratched the surface of his true powers. If a fragment of his mind had been able to craft a ‘Ben’, who knew what he could do if he immersed himself in his untapped potentials?

The sheen of moisture only served to make Klaus’s eyes brighter, almost passing for sobriety. No tears were shed yet, but the quiver of his pale lips was a telltale sign of how hard he was restraining himself. Ben wished he would just let go, let the fucking dam burst and the weight of his raw emotions crushing them both. There was no one here save two damaged souls — one, technically — and thus the nonchalant facade was made redundant.

“Let go of my hands,” Klaus mumbled, so weak and soft it was not so much an order as a plea. It was Ben’s Achilles’ heel.

He lifted a hand and for a second, Ben expected a punch or a slap and braced himself for the sting that was everything but physical. Instead, Klaus just rubbed his palm on Ben’s cheek as if he was petting a cat.

Well, he had said Ben was his ghost bitch, hadn’t he? And not just once.

“Fuck you,” he muttered, free of malice. “Can’t let me keep up the pretense, can you? No offense, but you’re shit at playing an imaginary friend, or brother, for that matter.”

Ben had no reply to that. He mimicked Klaus’s touch, relishing in the prickliness of his stubbles on the meat of his palm. The novelty of being able to make physical contact with the surroundings, especially with Klaus, had not ceased to amaze him. Ben didn’t think it would ever. Klaus didn’t recoil from his caress, which definitely counted as a victory in Ben’s book.

“Let me help you,” Ben whispered into his ear, his hand ghosting over Klaus’s visible arousal. He smiled to himself at the choice of word. “Think of it as jerking off, except you have an extra pair of hands.”

The back of his hand experimentally brushed against Klaus’s tented bulge. Ben found the reflexive buck of his hips extremely rewarding, made even more so by the steady stream of energy that continued to flow into him.

Klaus wanted it. Wanted him.

“... or mouth,” Klaus said, voice infinitesimally small as if he was ashamed. Odd. Ben had learned a long time ago that Klaus and shame walked on parallel lines. Perhaps the alcohol and the peculiarity of their circumstance had made him uncharacteristically meek.

Which didn’t matter, really, because he had voiced his request and Ben wouldn’t think twice about obliging him.

“Roger that.”

It should have weirded him out to have the weight of someone’s member — not someone’s, Ben corrected himself, Klaus’s; he would never do it with anyone else — pressing on his tongue. He had never given head before, probably same for the original ‘Ben’, yet when his lips stretched around Klaus’s girth, he felt quite at home with it. Klaus was by no means impressive, teetering on the slightly bigger side of average, and though Ben wouldn’t make the mistake of slipping down the ‘cock-comparing’ gutter, he had to admit it was just the right size. While he had no qualms about using his mouth to pleasure Klaus, he wasn’t keen on choking either — no, that was Klaus’s thing, and being not-alive meant he probably had no gag reflex, which Ben was incredibly grateful for.

That reminded him of a unique advantage in this whole endeavor: he knew every of Klaus’s preferences, what turned him on, turned him into a writhing mess, what put out his fire quicker than an ice bucket. Ben had witnessed Klaus push a guy away and get up from the mattress to put on his clothes in record’s time before striding out of the door, all the while not sparing a single glance or word at the terribly confounded chap. Klaus was a fickle creature and could be astoundingly cold and heartless when he was in the mood for it, even when his gregariousness and happy-go-lucky attitude usually shadowed his darker sides and lured people in. Not Ben though. Ben knew Klaus for what he was and what he was not.

Ben _was_ Klaus.

Which was why he smiled around Klaus’s girth when he felt a full-body shudder once he took him in his mouth. “Now who doesn’t mind a little extra chill along the ride?” Ben echoed Klaus’s earlier words through the mental link they had recently developed, through many a late night and a copious amount of booze (Ben had hated it), trusting that Klaus would get his tease even if his mouth was full. He chose to go slow at first, half teasing, half drawing it out even though Klaus’s motto for blowjob was hard and fast, either giving or receiving. But to go that route would be too predictable, and Ben didn’t aim for predictability. His tongue curled briefly under the foreskin before its tip poked the slit at the head, pressing against it for the first taste of Klaus. Not quite his ideal as his ideal would be Klaus’s skin, the canvas for the landmarks of his life. The tattooed area of his abdomen, the dip between his collarbones, salted by the pooling sweat, the thin, breakable skin on his throat, the sensitive patches behind his ears, Ben wanted to run his tongue over them — there would be a time when he was able to realize his little fantasy; for now he settled with his distinct flavor that was slightly bitter, slightly smoky and not entirely pleasant but still beat the wine he had chugged down by a thousand mile. Klaus would laugh until his guts hurt if he learnt of Ben’s opinion on fine wine.

Klaus’s fingers tangled in his strands and would likely ruin his perfectly coifed hair. Not an issue, really. His appearance usually fixed itself in no time, an apparition thing. “Go on. I know you like it,” he encouraged Klaus via their link, not forgetting to add a hint of a smile at the end.

The sharp sting at the root of his hair should not be exhilarating as it was, and Ben imagined his breath would hitch. When Klaus made him corporeal, sometimes he could feel things, sometimes he could not. One of the discoveries they had made these days was that the longer Klaus kept Ben physical, the more Ben could feel. Weight. Temperature. Tickle (a little weird — blame that on Klaus’s spontaneous tickle fight). Pressure. Ache. Pain. Was that what Klaus had implied when he suggested, no, encouraged, Ben to go out? Could he feel pleasure at Klaus’s touch the way Klaus was feeling now? While Ben intended to find out one day, that day was not today. Today was for Klaus’s pleasure and relief, anything else could wait.

Arching his back slightly Klaus raked his bitten fingernails at Ben’s scalp before he started pulling his hair, light at beginning yet quickly increasing in pressure until it was as if Klaus was trying to tear out his hair. He had half a heart to see whether it was possible to actually hurt a specter that way; if Klaus wasn’t drunk and in the middle of a blowjob, he would be on board with it. Ben scraped his teeth along Klaus’s length in retaliation, just on the right side of pain that he knew made Klaus weak in the knees. Vanilla sex wasn’t Klaus’s thing, and no matter how gorgeous his partner was, he would immediately call it a night and leave if they weren’t down with being a little freaky. The strained gasp he draw out of Klaus’s parted mouth was worth his trying.

Aside from that, Klaus had been surprisingly quiet since they started. However, Klaus was never one to stay mute in just about everything he was involved; his mouth might not be producing a lot sound like usual but his body was super vocal with what he yearned for. His fingers, for instance, clutching and releasing Ben’s hair in sync with the rhythm Ben had established, frustrating and exactly how Ben wanted; experience told him that slow could be rewarding in the long run, especially with Klaus who was used to rush. His chest rising and falling with short pants. His legs bending at the knees, bracketing Ben on both sides, squeezing him. His hips thrusting shallowly into Ben’s mouth, a not-too-subtle demand for him to speed up. Humming around his cock, Ben laid a hand on the jutting bone where his legs met the rest of him, crunching his brows at the way it dug into his palm, and firmly pressed down. There was moisture in Klaus’s eyes when their gazes met and Ben’s message came across. Klaus whimpered but nodded, throwing his head back against the pillow, dark, luscious curls making stark contrast with the white bedsheet. Klaus got off from being put in line, they both knew that; why else had he dedicated a portion of his brain for inventive ways to get on Ben’s undead nerves?

Ben let go off him and snorted at Klaus’s grunt. “Can I?” he asked, extending a hand towards Klaus’s throat. He blew softly at the head of Klaus’s spit-sleek cock, knowing full well how sensitive Klaus must be at the moment and a ghost’s breath must be torturous. True enough, Klaus immediately had a full-body shiver. “Fuck you, Ben,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Just do it.”

Ben dived back in.

No more teasing. This time Ben gave his all, working his cock hard and fast the way Klaus liked it, with a little extra teeth thrown in to spice things up. As he earnestly sucked Klaus, his right hand closed around Klaus’s windpipe. Such delicate neck, Ben mused, so easy to bruise, so easy to break. If he would just squeeze a little tighter. Klaus whimpered but didn’t stop him. His fingers splayed out on Klaus’s stomach, feeing the muscles tense up. Klaus was near to tip over the edge.

Off all the reactions Ben had witnessed when Klaus reached his climax, crying wasn’t one of them. Swallowing up Klaus’s seed (and getting an instant energy boost — _what the hell?_ ), he lifted his head from between Klaus’s legs. He removed his grip at once, frowning briefly at the shapes of his digits on pallid skin. “Hey,” he called out to Klaus, panic surging in his guts, “what’s the matter? Did I hurt you?”

Klaus shook his head and closed his eyes. His eyelids fluttered and tears flowed unbidden down the sides of his face, mingling with his sweats, before being absorbed into the pillow. “Hey, talk to me,” Ben said, wiping the tears with the pad of his thumb. They felt moist on his fingertip. “What’s going on?”

Klaus opened his bloodshot eyes, and the look in them was so haunting Ben couldn’t help a shudder. “Why couldn’t I conjure them?” he asked tearily.

It took Ben a few seconds to register the question. Before he could give a reply, Klaus started listing the names of their remaining siblings, one by one in the order Father had assigned them. “I’ve tried, alright. I’ve tried. A dozen times. A hundred. None of them has come. Just like Dave. Just like Ben. After his funeral I spent hours and hours searching the Beyond for him but he never answered. Not even a whisper or a flash. Instead I got you.”

Klaus was close to hyperventilate and Ben felt acutely a prick under his sternum. “Yeah, you got me. Stuck with me, it seems. Would you want me to go away?”

Klaus’s face scrunched up as he shook his head, his curls messy.

Ben lied down on the bed and curled his body against Klaus’s. The striking contrast between them put a small smile on his lips. Himself, unreal, fully clothed, chest still, and Klaus, real, mostly naked, chest heaving as quick pants left him. He placed a hand on Klaus’s heart, relishing in the strength confined in such small bundle of muscles. “You can make them if you want,” he said. “All of them. Any of them. Like you made me. One big happy family we never had.”

Ben touched his forehead with Klaus, closing his eyes and breathing his breath. For several moments the world was reduced to just this tiny bubble that contained the two of them, filled with Ben’s humming and Klaus’s heartbeats. This was their private world, which selfishly left no place for anyone else.

The thing about bubbles was they burst easily.

Ben was about to drift to sleep when there was knocking on the door. “Your followers are waiting for you, Great Prophet,” a voice said.

“In a minute,” Klaus replied, sitting up to throw on some clothes. He staggered to the door and looked back at Ben.

“Better make a new family, right?” he drawled, flashing a smile of Klaus the Prophet. “Ya comin’ or nah?”

Ben wordlessly got to his feet.

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> The reason I didn’t put Pseudo Incest in the tag is because the Ben in this story isn’t the real Ben (the Ben in the show) but an extension of Klaus. Technically it’s Self-cest but to put it would be spoilery.
> 
> In this fanfiction, Klaus’s powers aren’t communing with the dead, although Klaus himself and everyone else thinks they are. The ‘ghosts’ he’s been seeing are fragments of his mind, the ones he unconsciously created. The difference separating this from a mental illness is that he’s able to make these ‘specters’ corporeal.


End file.
